Media Consolidation

Recent decades have seen a large increase in ownership concentration in the local TV industry in the United States. The paper presented in this ZEW Research Seminar studies what conglomerate ownership implies for the content, viewership, and advertising choices of local TV stations and how these choices impact local political outcomes. The authors find that acquisitions by the Sinclair Broadcast Group decrease local coverage and increase advertising, with no effects on viewership. This is reflected into decreased competitiveness of state elections. Instead, ownership by other conglomerates (namely, the Nexstar Media Group and Gray Television) has limited impacts on the content and advertising choices of local TV stations.